WWE News: WWE Network subscriptions down

WWE released its third quarter financial report, which showed the updated number on the WWE Network subscriber count. The numbers have gone down from 1.51 million to 1.44 million, after giving away Wrestlemania 32 for free. Here are some detailed numbers from the report :

According to cagesideseats.com, the network revenues, which include the revenue generated by the WWE Network, and pay-per-view increased by 10%; thereby summing up to an amount of $45.1 million.

The revenue generated by WWE Network alone increased by 18%, giving a value of $42.8 million, which is an increase from their prior year quarter of $36.4 million.

The WWE increased the global subscriber base of the WWE Network, with launches over the trailing 12 months in five countries, including Germany and Japan. WWE Network had 1.07 million paid USA subscribers and 373,000 international paid subscribers at quarter-end. The chart above should give you a better idea.

The WWE is projecting the average number of subscribers to drop over the quarter to about 1.4 million (+/- 2%). That means, despite the big return of Goldberg and his upcoming feud with Brock Lesnar, WWE is not expecting much growth in the WWE Network subscriber count.

According to wrestlinginc.com, WWE’s Cheif Strategy Officer, George Barrios pointed to next year’s Wrestlemania, as the key driver for adding new domestic and international subscribers.

In the long term, WWE is positive about the growth of the WWE Network in 2017, though they noted it would be "at a lower rate, on a year-over-year basis than in 2016".

Here is a video to walk you through the WWE Network;

WWE introduced the WWE Network in February 2014 as a pay-TV channel. It has not been widely accepted, since it’s release after users detected a number of flaws, which reached its peak during Royal Rumble 2015 when #cancelwwenetwork trended on twitter. Here is a video which describes the entire situation:

With the majority of digital views coming from outside of United States, WWE will have to utilise the next few years to broaden the market to become the next entertainment juggernaut.

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